Teenagers already face an uncertain future, and have only glimpsed the harsh realities of finding a job in the competitive world. Some have ideas of the occupation they want to undertake when they are older, but to do this they need certain grades. As they try to achieve these grades they pressurize themselves to get the best result, but then pressures start to come from different directions. Some come in the form of the need to be computer literate, as today’s world stands on technology. Others come in the form for the need to be able to communicate, as many disasters, both big and small, come from the lack of communication. If this was not enough pressure, the media displays a lot more. Every year the news displays the results from GCSE and A Level, and the expectations that next years will be even better. The pressure to achieve and to please everyone becomes too overwhelming. Everything seems to fly past them, and they can never quiet reach for it as much as everyone wants them too. They are never quite close enough. This constant reminder that they have to better, makes teenagers turn to things that they know they will always be the best at. Socialising. Here they can enjoy, and be relaxed with either friends, or material goods. It is not their fault though that they prefer these things to education. Computer games, mobile phones etc have become the biggest things that are part of our society. Teenagers see them everywhere, and are told by the media that they have to have them. The media has a huge part in this problem, as they tell teenagers that these commercial goods are the best way to get away from the stress of school. It is also the media who has made it so difficult that we would never be able to isolate the teenagers from these things anyway. Material goods have become too big apart in teenage lives, that we would never be able to take them away. Even though this is true, material goods have also formed something that we should have achieved long before they came along. They have acted as an escape route, a storm shelter, able to withstand the torrential rain, and pelting wind from hurricane school of pressure. They have acted as a path to the outside world, a path away from exam pressure, and coursework deadlines.
Although the teenagers try to escape from all these attributes of schools, it is always there somewhere, shadowing them everywhere. Teenagers face so many pressures, they are constantly bombarded by them, like a continuous hailstorm of harsh hassle. Hassle from teachers to complete coursework. Hassle from parents to revise for exams. Hassle from family to do better. Hassle from themselves to achieve the best they can do. But for others this best is never good enough. Everyone sees us teenagers as children who are lazy and ignorant of the world around us, children who can always achieve more than possible. We are not children, we are the adults of tomorrow, but no one else sees this. So they continue to get us more and more work. This overload of work becomes so overwhelming, that eventually sacrifices have to be made over social activities. For many teenagers, a normal day goes like this. Get up, have some breakfast, get ready for school, go to school, comeback from school, homework, which can be anything from half an hour to four hours, then possibly a bit of time to socialise, and then bed. Many times though, that little time left for socialising disappears as homework and coursework takes over. This is the socialising time that all teenagers need. With so much strain that builds up after a day of schooling, socialising releases that stress. There is no way that anyone can constantly work, work, work without relaxing at some point. To take away that relaxation would be foolish and cruel to all teenagers. As a country with a heart we cannot do this to our teenagers. Teenagers need to socialise, and by taking away the mobile phone would prove to make things even worse. The mobile happens to be one thing that actually keeps many teenagers at home longer. They can interact more inside the house, and then at the same time do some work. To take away the mobile means that teenagers would go out more, and therefore get less work done. We have to create a balance so that these teenagers can cope. At the moment the balance is only slightly tipping towards the school side, but if we take away material goods, the balance will sway totally towards school and its pressures, or teenagers will choose to forget about it completely.
Teenagers find it hard to keep this scale balanced. Socialising is what they want to do the most, but they do know that school is important. We seem to think that all teenagers think about is doing all the fun things in life, but they do care about their grades, they do care about their work, and they do care about the approval of teachers and parents. Adults are just too blind to see this. Teenagers need their friends, but still want the grades. Sometimes friends are the best things for teenagers. Friends are in the same situation as them, and know what it is like. Friends witness the same things, and if they can get though it so can you. Friends encourage, and always find the best way on the path to achieving your full potential. Without friends our teenagers would not be able to deal with the weight of school and would crack under the pressure. Friends take away this pressure, and help with lifting the weight. Friends working together make school life easier as they all take turns to carry each other’s load as someone has a rest. To take away their time with friends would prove to be disastrous. Teenagers would not have the support and push to get the qualifications that they need. The media constantly promotes this importance of qualifications, and it is friends that make it less frightening. Still, with friends the need for good qualifications is very daunting and intimidating. Being scared can also put teenagers off the thought of education. GCSE and A Level years for teenagers can be the most important years of their lives. These years can be a limbo for them, where they do not know where they are going or how they can get there. They have not achieved their qualifications yet, and so the pressure is there again to get those credentials. If they do not, they are in trouble. This whole experience can be too overwhelming and demoralizing for some, and causes many to run away from their problems. They cannot organize deadlines, or achieve grades, and eventually shut down from work, and shut out the world. This can be helped by having time to relax from the pressures, but not when teachers and parents are constantly shouting “You Must Achieve!”
This can just be too much for the teenagers of today’s society. Teenagers become closed up, and push everyone and everything away. Those who really want the grades end up cracking because they do not make time to relax and socialise. The pressure, strain and stress prove to be too much and they become detached and removed. From not having any one to motivate them they do not push forward. Their grades go too. There are two sides of the extreme where teenagers lose the grades. There is the side where they spend too much time with friends, and there is the side where they do not. We need to find a way to get a balance between the two, where the grades come from both their own motivation, and the motivation from friends. These are young adults who still need some help, as they have not quite found their identity yet. Adults need to help their children or pupils to keep this balance instead of pushing them one-way or the other. Too much pressure does this. When a teenager cannot reach they give up. Adults need to teach teenagers not to give up but to keep reaching until they can grab it will a strong grip. Their grips are slipping as they have to make life-deciding decisions that close many doors, but open others. “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” This quote by Alexander Graham Bell shows what the adults of the country should start doing. Instead of watching teenagers stare at the closed door, they should turn them around and show them the door that has just opened. By doing this the teenagers can quickly walk through it, and start the next stage of their lives immediately.
Parents and teachers are the people of this country who really need to start helping teenagers. They need to support them and listen to their concerns. Teenagers are so easily misunderstood, as they are in the middle of everything. They are almost adults, but do not have much say, and are rarely listen to with respect. Many listen to teenagers, but do not take in their views, or consider their opinions. This has to change. It is the teenagers who are the next generation, the generation who could change the country for better or for worse. Teenagers cannot achieve their roles in the future though, if they do not have the confidence to do so. Pressures put them down, stress demoralizes them, and strain takes away the confidence they need in the competitive world. Schools need to relieve them from this pressure, relieve them from the storm of work, which brews above them, and relieve them from the frightening prospects of the future. They may not be confident in this area, but schools do manage to promote self-confidence and expression of opinion so that if there were a ban, teenagers would not stand down. Teenagers need to be listened to. Teenagers need to be consulted. Teenagers need to be helped, and by doing that we help our selves. Adults, you were once teenagers, and you made your futures. You need to help teenagers of today to make theirs. Malcolm S. Forbes (1919-1990) said, “Education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” We need to replace the mind of teenagers, not with pressure and hardship, but with an open mind, which is determined, and has the want to succeed.
